Home-Grown Garden Tails
by orpheus-under-starlight
Summary: Naruto, ever the innovator, proves his mastery over time and space by ripping a hole in the fabric of reality. One unfortunate Dynamic Entry later, Team Seven wakes up in the past- only to find that the past is not entirely as they knew it. Might as well change what they can while they're at it. [mild crackfic]
1. Auspicious Beginnings

**i.**

Haruno Sakura is twenty-five- and a half- when Naruto does a goof and creates a hole in space-time.

As days history is made go, she reflects that this one is really rather unremarkable. It's a typical June day in Konoha: the sun is beating down on them, the grass beneath them and the trees around them stink of botany, and the sounds of other shinobi working in nearby training ground are a comfortable constant. Especially the screams of that one recently-promoted chuunin who's been trying to learn fire jutsu for the better half of the past year. Sakura smiles to herself in the middle of a crunch, proud of the girl. She's young and shy, sure, but she's already distinguishing herself as an exceptionally efficient learner in the hospital...

"Guys, I think I broke the world!"

Sasuke raises his head from the scroll he's been scribbling all over for a year, trying to rehash the entire clan law from the minuscule bits and pieces that Itachi hadn't burned out of spite when he jumped ship. Sakura puts hers in her hands. Kakashi (who wandered into the training ground while following the road of life) looks devilishly amused, probably because he's still mad about Sakura getting him into the position of Hokage and takes abject joy in all her suffering.

"Dammit, Naruto," Sasuke says dully. "Not again." He returns to the scroll.

Naruto thinks about that for a moment. They can all hear the gears turning in his brain, until finally: "But this one is twice the size!"

"That's not a good thing," comes his teammate's apathetic voice.

"No, it is," Naruto corrects smugly. "Because this means that all of space and time is now in my reach."

Team Seven takes a moment to consider the ramifications of that.

"We're doomed," Sakura sighs.

Suddenly, Kakashi stills. They're all on the alert within a second, eyes fixed on him in worry. Sakura strains her senses to feel around their location and comes up with nothing, so what—?

"MY ULTIMATE RIVAL..." a great and terrible voice booms from a thunderstorm suspiciously centralized in Konoha's market district, far off and yet horribly close at the same time. "...CHALLENGE... FLAMES OF MY YOUTH!"

Everyone looks at Kakashi. Kakashi stares accusingly at Sasuke. Comprehension dawns on Sakura's face, who also turns to stare at the taciturn Uchiha.

"Sasuke, you didn't..." she starts.

Seemingly absorbed in his scroll, he does not respond.

"...UCHIHA! I WILL DEFEAT YOU THIS TIME! I SHALL NEVER LET MY YOUTH BE QUENCHED, NOT EVEN BY YOUR INSIDIOUSLY UNYOUTHFUL SCHEMES!"

"What did you even do to Lee?" Naruto asks in bewilderment.

"Squirrels," Kakashi mutters darkly. "Can't believe anybody taught him genjutsu..."

"Uh, Kakashi, you taught him genjutsu," Sakura points out.

Immediately, Kakashi is blank-faced. "I have no memory of that."

 _Liar,_ all three think, eyeing him.

An exceedingly youthful earthquake shakes the ground as Lee's chakra signal approaches the team at an alarmingly quick rate. Naruto gulps to himself when he remembers something else that Lee must've discovered this morning when he put that horrible spandex suit on...

"Let's get out of here," he says hastily and grabs Sasuke and Sakura's wrists, thinking only of the burnt ashes of every single one of Bushy Brows' suits. That was the disadvantage to seal work, really. Things just tended to blow up indiscriminately at the first hint of a network that was incompatible with the laws of the universe. "We've gotta go, 'ttebayo!" he stresses when his teammates remain immovable, eyes wide and alarmed. He feels Kurama wince inwardly and realizes he's let his verbal tic slip by- but that doesn't matter right now, they've got to get out of here _yesterday!_

"You did something. What was it?" Sakura demands, grasping his arm in turn.

"All of Lee's suits are gone," Naruto wails, flailing as the pink-haired woman's grip tightens. Sasuke glares and steps approximately two feet to the left when a particularly violent wave of his arms nearly hits the Uchiha square on the nose. A shame, really; Naruto had been aiming in that general direction.

"YOSH!"

The Dynamic Entry that Lee executes tosses Sasuke right into the wormhole, which the seal has been powering the whole time. The remaining members of Team 7 look at each other.

"I've gotta save Sasuke!" Naruto dives into the shimmering weave of volatile space-time energy before anyone can stop him.

"Excuses!" the pink-haired woman hollers after him.

Lee stops, blinking now that the targets of his youthful energy have disappeared. "What is...?"

Kakashi and Sakura share a truly woebegone sigh, mutually deciding to never acknowledge that Lee looks half-decent when he isn't wearing that hideous suit. "Why are we the only intelligent members of this team?" Sakura laments.

"Never leave a teammate behind," Kakashi points out.

"Yeah, yeah, power of friendship, trust in the blond, ramen-loving reincarnation of Kami-sama," the pink-haired woman mutters under her breath.

"Come on. Lee, tell Tsunade-sama that she's interim Hokage, effective immediately," the masked man tells the Jonin gleefully as he prods Sakura along. "We have no idea where this tear in reality leads to and I've got some teammates to save."

"Kakashi, I can walk perfectly fine on my own. Stop pushing me! And stop shirking your responsibilities just because you miss fieldwork, you lazy, porn-reading, Mr. Ukki neglecter-"

Lee watches as they jump into the violently sparkling purple rip in the fabric of the universe, mouth opening and closing. When the seal makes an odd sound three minutes later and the wormhole closes up again as if it had never been there, he shuts it with a click and recalls the directive their bizarre Hokage has just given him. "That is most Unyouthful," he murmurs, shocked into regular decibel levels.

Tsunade will not be happy.

 **ii.**

Kakashi wakes silently to a spotless green ceiling. He eyes it.

 _Well_ , he thinks. _That's new. And not grey. Not to mention that stain from the pissing contest the dogs had while I was out is gone... Did someone tell Sai that the best way to engender affection from others is to do them favors?_ Then he realizes: _Wait, this apartment had the most hideous shade of tea green until I painted it between ANBU missions!_

He closes his eyes again after taking a moment to absorb this information and its implications. "Dammit, Naruto," he says aloud, pinching the bridge of his nose. Then he sits up and performs a familiar sequence of seals, slamming his hand down on the plain blue sheets without a care as to their cleanliness. "Summoning!"

Pakkun sniffs once in Kakashi's direction after arriving and gives him what Kakashi has come to understand as the dog equivalent of a raised eyebrow. "Alright, kid. Something's got you bothered. Spill."

"We've got a Code Orange. I need you to look around."

"That's two in the past month…" Kakashi gives him a Look. Pakkun heaves a great big unimpressed humph. "Look around, sure. I'll do you one better: you've got one heck of a visitor in the other room. Try not to throw a kunai at him." With that happy warning Pakkun leaps out of the open window.

What? Kakashi blinks, bewildered. When he tests the air he finds that Pakkun is _right_... though he can't quite place the scent of the male. It's familiar, sure, but exactly who is it…? "I've got a bad feeling about this," he mumbles to himself, slipping his kunai holster on anyways and latching the window shut.

"Good morning, Kakashi-san," says a very familiar voice. "I came to see how you were feeling…"

Kakashi valiantly resists the urge to have a heart attack as a half-grown Uchiha Itachi dodges the instinctive kunai to the jugular with a cool tilt of the head.

"…Good morning," Kakashi returns, forcing his body to relax.

Itachi smiles. There's no trace of shock, resentment, or cruelty in it. In fact… that looks like _warmth_ from _Itachi._ Kakashi nearly does have that heart attack. "I suppose I should tell Hokage-sama that you are still on the mend. Kushina-san has been preventing him from making noodles for you. She says 'you're welcome', by the way."

 _…What_. Putting aside the fact that he's nearly sure that's the most Itachi's ever said in one go, _what?_ How… what… _when…_ what? What exactly has Naruto gotten them into this time?

Kakashi moves, very carefully, to sit on the edge of the other couch.

"Explain," he says delicately.

"Aa." Itachi nods and writes something down on a little notebook. _Memory loss,_ Kakashi reads. _Blunt trauma may have caused lasting internal damage._ "You see, even delirious you refused to stay in the hospital…"

 **iii.**

Sakura Haruno is eight- and a half- years old when she wakes up in a shockingly pink bed with the immense urge to find Naruto and beat the crap out of him. With a slowness that would invoke fear in anyone around to see it, she raises her hand and sees a small, untried, uncalloused little-girl palm.

"Na-ru-toooooo," she hisses lowly, clenching that hand into a fist. "I am going to kill you."

For Sakura, being knocked unconscious only means retreating to the mindscape that she and her Inner once shared. In the years since she had survived to adulthood, the mindscape had been comforting in its silence; it was a place of security to regroup and think before she charged out again, because time passed less quickly than it did in the real world.

She's been unconscious for what feels like three days. And what did she find when she looked around after being pushed into that rip in space-time by Kakashi?

 _Who's Naruto?_ asks Inner curiously.

"Slowly. Painfully. I can cause internal injuries," Sakura mutters to herself as she gets ready for the day and eyes the frilly lavender curtains opposite her dresser mutinously. "You won't escape. When I catch you, you'll do whatever it was that you did the first time and get us back before I'm forced to disembowel you for… For… Violating space-time protocols!"

It's one of the first things anyone learns when starting fuuinjutsu theory! Messing with a timeline via seals is dangerous on several orders of magnitude— like _destroy the world if you do it wrong_ magnitudes! _A Beginner's Guide to Inverse Quadratic Seal Matrices_ by Takuya Tanaka says so, and it's a beginner-level text that she knows he checked out from Konoha's library, so how does Naruto not know that?

 _Or_ (the far more likely option, she reflects), how could he completely disregard that warning?! He's not allowed to even potentially die when it's not for a mission and she's not around to put him back together!

Sheer pique leads her to tie her hair up with her old ribbon in sharp, violent movements. Sakura glares at herself in the mirror on the wall next to her little bed. Books and books and books gleam enticingly at her from behind, inviting her to lose herself in the world of knowledge.

"No," she tells the books with a truly fearsome glower. She's got a dumb future Hokage to hunt down.

 _Sa-kuuuuu-raaaaa,_ Inner whines. _Who is Naruto? Tell me!_

"He's an idiot!" is the vehement reply as Sakura stomps out of her room and right past her startled aunt.


	2. A Little Different

**iv.**

"Kushina," Minato says after he swallows the last mouthful of ramen and sets the bowl on his desk. "How would you feel about taking on a genin team?"

"I'd get to train some ducklings, 'ttebane?!" His wife jumps down from the wall in excitement, ignoring the disapproval radiating from the ANBU hanging around the corners of the Hokage's office.

He grins at her. She scowls when she realizes what she's said.

"Oi, shut up!" Kushina grumbles, flopping into the visitor's chair with a huff. They didn't have chairs in the office before Minato took over. That's another thing the ANBU disapprove of, though it's more of a constant _Kushina-sama, please refrain from redecorating the venerable Hokage's office, it is a place of integrity blah blah blah_ than anything else. What's she doing again? Oh, right. Minato's finally given in and now he's laughing at her with That Look again. "You know I've always wanted to. Any reason you're asking now?"

"Well, with our son's time soon to be well and truly occupied, Itachi-kun's going to need to learn the value of teamwork with children his own age," Minato comments, nonchalantly reaching over and curling a lock of her hair in his fingers. "Who better than the Crimson Whirlpool? You seem thrilled, Mikoto will be, and Itachi-kun won't try to murder you for inefficiency because he loves you."

"Hmph. 'Course he wouldn't. Who taught him to take his frustrations out through ingenious revenge plans instead of indiscriminate stabbing?" Kushina rolls her eyes. Itachi is hers. Well, Mikoto and Fugaku's too, he's sort of a joint effort, but his parents are obligated to teach him all about boring things like etiquette and paperwork, and Kushina's just not about that when it's not for Hokage-y reasons. What she is about is helping kids in difficult situations and kicking ass so that more kids aren't put in said situations. Itachi qualifies as that even disregarding the "genius" part of his existence, considering his status as an actual pacifist in the unenviable position of "shinobi clan heir".

Seriously. She kinda knows why (according to Mikoto, the poor kid had seen a vicious skirmish in the aftermath of the Third Shinobi World War) but it's still almost unbelievable, in a horrified _how is he going to survive_ sort of way.

A tug on her hair. "So, would you be willing to?"

She grasps his wrist with an unusual gentleness, thumb sliding over the main vein as she smiles at the trust he bestows upon her. She plants a kiss to it and grins. "First, you're going to tell me what our son is going to be filling his time with." She pauses. "…Aside from enrolling in the Academy. You think I didn't see those forms, Minato?"

A knock at the door. "Hokage-sama?"

Kushina gives an annoyed little snort and leans one arm on the chair, using her hand as a resting place for her chin. Minato smiles at her with dancing eyes. She glares. His smile grows mischievous. "Come in, Itachi-kun," he calls, straightening the papers on his desk. Itachi shuts the door and bows. "At ease. What do you have there?"

"My report on the condition of Hatake Kakashi, Hokage-sama." Itachi extends the notebook to Minato, who takes it with a nod. A look passes between them, and Itachi inclines his head lightly. "He is somewhat disoriented; the medics inform me that it will take time for him to re-acclimate, but the slight memory loss is not permanent."

"Good. Thank you, Itachi-kun. I appreciate this… especially seeing as you'll be very busy soon."

Kushina takes a moment to admire her handiwork when Itachi doesn't so much as twitch. "Yes, Hokage-sama."

Minato looks up from the notebook. His polite, warm smile grows a tad predatory- like he's discovered a new, fascinating possibility with which he can break the boundaries of time and space. Again. Kushina valiantly resists the urge to pout like an offended pufferfish. _Minato, your intentions are showing. He'll be_ my _student soon! You already have one genius!_ "Make sure you're on time for your Academy graduation, Itachi-kun. I look forward to seeing you there."

"…Yes, Hokage-sama."

"You are dismissed."

"Yes, Hokage-sama."

"Have a nice day," Minato says pleasantly. The door shuts. His smile drops. "Kushina, read this."

Kushina picks up the notebook and gives it a scan-through.

Minato waits expectantly.

"What I want to know," she says finally, keeping her ninja composure with everything in her, "is when he learned Uzumaki script."

"We know he has an eidetic memory. If he saw you using it once, once was enough."

Kushina shrugs, conceding the piece of information as a necessary sacrifice. "Well, it's not like it'd be hard for Itachi-kun. He's already used to my fuuinjutsu workshop." The outside of it, that is.

They both look at the notebook sitting innocently on his desk, ignoring the distinct silence that comes with the most blatant of lies. Kushina closes her eyes for a fraction of a second and forces them back open; if she understands the implications of the message as well as she thinks she does, Itachi is in danger. Significant danger. The kid's too self-sufficient for his own good; he'd never do anything like this without a very good reason.

But his message…

She shudders internally when it passes over her mind's eye once more. No twelve-year-old should have to write something like that.

 _I am torn in two:_

 _Konoha has my heart._

 _My clan would tear it out._

 _The roots that sink deep into the earth and skulk in the Hokage's shadow would erase my clan._

 _I cannot condone either, and yet both beckon to me. I am but one person, one soul. I love Konoha above all else, but the Uchiha are a part of Konoha. I do not wish to destroy any part of my village, Hokage-sama. I beg your aid._

 _I will be recruited two days after Academy graduation if nothing is done, and it is not an invitation easily refused._

"I have a lot to do," Minato says finally. "If you have time to help…"

"Anything for you, 'ttebane." Kushina cracks a grin at him, somewhat cheered by the intensely displeased aura emanating from the corner. Must be Snake, that old crone.

Minato runs a hand through his hair. The sunlight coming through the window catches it. "You're amazing," he says ruefully, and she knows he reciprocates.

 _We'll figure this out, Itachi,_ Kushina vows silently, pulling her hair back into a ponytail to keep it out of the way. _I got him out of an Iwa prisoner-of-war camp once before anyone knew he was gone. You go through that together, you can go through anything together._

 _Just hold on._

 **v.**

Three children seat themselves at a small ramen bar on a sunny afternoon in June. Two of them are glaring at the other one, who only gives them a large, completely undeterred smile.

"Ah, it's you three again. What would you like today, kids?"

"Miso!"

"…Shrimp."

"Veggie ramen, please."

Teuchi's eyes crinkle at the corners. "Coming right up."

"Thanks, old man!"

Naruto's second-favorite old guy just laughs and pats him on the head. Naruto beams with angelic innocence. Sakura's glare intensifies; Sasuke emits a low-level apathetic hatred. Naruto turns to them with exaggerated thoughtfulness.

"Why, hello," and there's Sasuke nearly choking on air at Naruto's ridiculous posh accent, "I don't believe we've met before. Whomsoever might you two be?"

"It's 'whoever'." Sakura glares a little more. Naruto gives her a challenging look. Her brows scrunch together and her small mouth twists into a vicious frown. "I'm not having this conversation until I get to eat."

"Let's go to the playground," Sasuke says, unexpectedly. At the wide-eyed looks, he scowls. "I'm only here because you dragged me here… I was waiting for my brother there before you showed up."

"Huh, that was a playground?" Naruto blinks. _Wait, brother? How old are we?_

Sasuke's answer is silence, but Naruto's known how to read Uchiha since he was five. It's honestly a little impressive how much scorn Sasuke has learned to pack into one neutral stare and a single aborted hand-twitch. He knows that most of Konoha believes that Uchiha are blank and unreadable, and Sasuke's behavior hasn't helped in regards to _that_ idea. Maybe they're not wrong, either- if you're bad at body language, like most of Konoha. To Naruto, the Uchiha have always been some of the most emotive people around. Especially when their police people were chasing him 'cause some civilian didn't appreciate her tomato plant-covered wardrobe.

 _Sheesh, tomato stains made that ensemble a lot less ugly on that lady!_ he thinks with a bit of a pout.

…Heh, but being able to read Uchiha gave him the upper hand when he was younger! He isn't the smartest guy around like Shikamaru is, but he knows a thing or two about how far to push people before it's time to cut and run.

 _You are a moron,_ Sasuke's stare says. _The most moronic moron to have ever been a moron in the history of morons._

Ahh, teammates. Naruto's getting the warm and fuzzies, and it's not because of the fuzzy in his gut. Now, Naruto knows how _he_ would react, but how would he as a kid have reacted? Flashes of memory reach him, indignation and pain and determination all intertwined. A beat for comprehension and believability, and then- "Y'don't gotta be so rude about it!"

 _Play the game,_ he entreats silently, since Sakura's really, really not in the mood right now. Sasuke never likes doing what he's told anyway, the jerk, but maybe just this once…?

Sasuke heaves a great big _harrumph_ and turns his face away to stare at Teuchi's preparation of their ramen with a gimlet eye.

"Oi!" Naruto hollers, standing up on the stool. "Don't ignore me, bastard! I'm bein' all jeh-ner-ous and stuff and this is how you appreciate me?"

 _"Generosity_ isn't making my brother look for me everywhere," Sasuke snips back, the slightest of scowls making itself known on his face.

"Here's your ramen, kids!" Ayame interrupts cheerfully, sliding the bowls into place in front of the children with an expert hand. "Naruto, remember: you can't enjoy your ramen standing up!"

"I guess I can sit down if it's for ramen!" Naruto bounces excitedly and drops back down, inhaling the aroma wafting up to his nose with a pleased grin. Now that he's in the thick of it, he really is enjoying this whole… experience? Trip? Complete accident? Whatever it is, the few remaining documents on Uzu fuuinjutsu techniques had led him to it, and he's not about to let the opportunity go to waste. He's not one for regrets (or lots of introspection when it can be avoided) and that seal didn't have any return parameters on it and he's here now, so he'll do what he's always done no matter where he's been: live life to its fullest.

Sure, he'll miss the friends like Hinata and Shikamaru- the people he wasn't as close to, but still enjoyed working with- and the progress he managed to make… but it seems like things are a little different in this Konoha. The events of the morning come back to him in a flash.

 _Good morning, Naruto! You ready for breakfast? …Naruto? Naruto, what's wrong, honey? Did you have a nightmare? Is it Mr. Fuzzy again? C'mere, kiddo. Tell your awesome ninja mom about it. Hey… it's okay, it's okay… I'm here, Naruto._

 _I'm here._

"Ramen is so beautiful," he says after his bowl is empty, dabbing away at the tears forming in his eyes. Sakura gives him a look that implies her sincere doubts about his sanity, but that's alright, she always has. He can't wait to hear her lecture him about caution and following the rules and all that; it wouldn't be Sakura if she didn't worry enough about his stupid fuuinjutsu moments to scold him without regard for his status as a really really good mathematician. She cares, that's what matters, so he can endure a little yelling. His eyes crinkle as he grins as wide as he can at her. "Don'tcha think ramen is great, Sakura-chan?"

Sakura very carefully does not look at Teuchi or Ayame as she politely finishes off her bowl. "It's very yummy."

"Thank you for the meal," Sasuke interrupts, addressing Teuchi. Naruto delights in the slight nod Sasuke graces Teuchi with; that means he's been able to beat the manners back into him! Progress! "We need to get back to the playground now."

Naruto happily slides over enough ryo notes to pay for all three of them. "Yeah, thanks! I'll be back!"

"I definitely appreciate it, Naruto-kun. Have a good day!" Teuchi says, all good-natured and everything. Naruto likes Teuchi a lot, and his presence as one of Naruto's few constants only solidified the attachment when he was a kid. Seems like the same thing happened here, which is good, because Naruto doesn't think he could stomach having to pretend to be unfamiliar with Teuchi of all people.

"You too, old man!"

"Let's go." Sakura drags Naruto away when he tries to stay and spout even more effusive praise for Teuchi's ramen.

Ayame watches the three depart, smiling at their good-natured squabbling.

"He's a good kid," she says fondly. "I'm glad he's making friends."

Teuchi nods. "Must be hard as the Hokage's son. He's really only had us and Iruka-san until now."

 **vi.**

"So, what's new?"

"What's new is that I woke up this morning with someone in my head who's been gone for about seven years. Do you know how annoying she is? _Do_ you?"

 _Hey!_

"…Oh, your split personality?"

 _Split?! I'm you! I'm just a different part of you, that's all._

"You knew about her?"

"Well, yeah, there were really only so many explanations for how you could be absolutely pissed one second and then completely calm the second… We figured it was some kind of neurosis, y'know?"

An offended gasp. Inner retreats into the corners of Sakura's mind.

 _"…Naruto,"_ Sakura sighs, a great big heave of air that takes the tension in her frame with it. She looks to the side, internally cringing over the danger inherent in the way she let her emotions overwhelm her. It's been years since she's gotten angry like this, especially at Naruto. After a long moment she speaks. "I… You… Look. I'm mad because you keep doing stuff like this, even though you're next in line! It's- well- what happens next time?"

She'll figure herself out later, she's got a point to make right now.

Sasuke and Naruto share a long look trying to decipher where this thread of thought has come from when they are literally _in the past_ and it will take _actual years_ for Naruto to re-develop the chakra control needed for the kind of fuuinjutsu he's been experimenting with for the past year.

"I can see you thinking, you know," she says, sitting on the lowest bar of the jungle gym. It feels completely ridiculous to speak like this when she's a little under four feet tall and her voice is painfully high-pitched. "If nothing else, you have to admit that this is a lot more drastic than any of your other experiments."

"Nawww, c'mon. Nothing I do is drastic!"

Two dubious looks.

Naruto smiles winningly.

"If you have to lie, at least try to tell a believable one." Sasuke's frowning like Naruto has personally disappointed him.

"Yes, I expected better from you, Naruto."

They all jump and whirl to the source of the unexpected voice. Kakashi is sitting on top of the swing set that's crammed uncomfortably close to the side of the daycare building, nose buried in a plain-looking book.

Sakura glances at her teammates. Naruto is pouting something ferocious and Sasuke, as ever, does not seem inclined to be helpful.

 _Sometimes I think he enjoys being like that,_ she mutters to Inner. _He's a big grump, you know._

 _Really? But he looks so cool…_

Ugh, that's the other thing she had forgotten about Inner. She puts it aside and blinks innocently at Kakashi. "E-Excuse me, nin-san, who are you?"

She's almost proud of how natural the stutter sounds. Almost. Most of her is just galled by it.

Kakashi's eye meets hers for a moment. He glances at the road as he casually puts the book away and stretches his fingers. Three pairs of eyes flick towards the motion, then away. "Maa, well, I'm one thing and I'm another…"

"What kinda wishy-washy answer is that?!" Naruto demands, bounding up to him. "You're my brother, that's who you are!"

"Oh? And who said that?" is the mild response as Kakashi flips down and hoists Naruto over his shoulder like a rice sack.

"Mom did!" Naruto flails, but Kakashi doesn't let go.

"Of course she would," Kakashi mutters under his breath, restraining Naruto's arms before his student (deliberately) smacks him in the back of the head.

"Naruto-kun's brother?" Sakura asks, wide-eyed. She stands on the jungle gym bar to peer up at him and frowns in confusion. "But… you're so _old!"_

Kakashi's eye twitches. _Score,_ Sakura thinks gleefully, straining her ears to hear the sounds of feet on the dusty road. Unfortunately, all she gets are civilians tromping around. It drives her nuts; she can feel the sensation of watchfulness along that road, but her young body isn't attuned to the quiet noises that ninjas cannot avoid.

Sasuke tilts his head back and lets out a little _hmmmf_ before Kakashi can respond. "Well, my brother is better than any brother of a dumb guy like you."

Naruto lets out an offended gasp. "Nu-uh!"

"Uh-huh," Sasuke taunts.

"Maa, maa, let's not fight over my greatness," Kakashi says cheerfully. "Don't we all have places to be?"

"Yes, you are supposed to be in your home," is the response as Itachi drops out of the trees lining the other side of the playground. "You are on medical leave, Kakashi-san, and I will not hesitate to inform Kushina-san if you do not do what you are told."

"Is that a challenge?"

Out of the corner of her eye, Sakura sees Sasuke struggling mightily to smother his shock when Itachi favors Kakashi with a visibly exasperated stare. "Kakashi-san. I am helping you stay away from the hospital; kindly do not resist."

"Ah, but I haven't purchased my groceries yet! I couldn't possibly go home without a plan for dinner."

"I can arrange dinner." Itachi is unruffled. Sakura marvels at the difference between the Itachi all of them had seen before and this younger Itachi- he's just barely begun growing, really. "What would you like?"

Kakashi's eye narrows. "Okonomiyaki."

It sounds like a challenge. Sakura frowns to herself, wishing Kakashi would just follow health protocols for once in his life. _They're good for you,_ she pleads mentally. _Follow them and you'll be in working order quicker! I'm running out of polite ways to tell the nurses that they'll have to fight you every step of the way…_

 _…Wait… We're in the past._

 _Ha! I can use all of them again! Maybe this isn't so bad after all!_

"No, ramen!" Naruto tries to wiggle his way to freedom of vision; Kakashi tightens his hold on him. "Ramen is the best!"

"We just had ramen, Naruto-kun," Sakura points out.

"Well, I want more!"

"Why don't we see what Sasuke-kun wants?" she suggests.

"It doesn't matter. I'm eating at home." _With my brother. Without Naruto or you._ The addendums are painfully transparent to everyone except Itachi.

"Laaaaame." That's Naruto, sure enough..

Itachi smiles. It's a rather nice smile, really. Sakura remembers the time period they're in and wonders how genuine it is. He must be terribly stressed at the moment, being torn between three factions. As she turns this idea over in her head and another springs to life, he speaks. "Why don't we walk down to the market and see what's around? I'm sure a snack won't hurt, Sasuke."

"…If we have to."

Sakura obligingly trots alongside Sasuke, ignoring Inner's squeals. _We need to figure out a way to talk,_ she thinks, and finds that Sasuke is eyeing her when she looks over. She quirks a brow; he blinks and tilts his chin in Naruto's direction. Her other brow joins the first. Sasuke's arm rises and falls in its natural walking rhythm. When his hand is concealed by his side, he makes the sign for _talk privately._

She tilts her head and furrows her brows. He rolls his eyes.

 _Later,_ he signs, and turns to walk closer to Itachi.


	3. Sakura and the Accidental Scholarship

**vii.**

"Soooo… are you gonna teach me your _super-awesome-cool moves,_ 'Kashi?" Naruto blinks his big blue eyes at his _big brother._ He makes sure to add some extra eyelash flutter. Just for emphasis.

"Not until you have the chakra control for them, _Naruto-chan,"_ is the dry response, followed by a sigh as the frying pan emits ominous sizzling noises. Kakashi silently marvels at the way his joints don't crack as he stands to attend to their lunch- twenty-two really is quite a difference from forty-one.

Naruto pouts, flops across Kakashi's couch, and eyes his teacher's efforts critically. "You know… you should turn down the heat."

"Alright."

"Give it about one more minute and then add the soy sauce."

"Alright."

"Add some salt before then, though! It won't mix right with the soy sauce already in it. And-"

Kakashi finally looks up in exasperation, because at this point he isn't even surprised. "Naruto, when did you learn to cook?"

Naruto puffs his chest out in indignation, though he doesn't bother to get up like he normally would. "Hey! I've known how to cook since I first got my own apartment! I just didn't have the time, y'know, with training and everything. I'm a pretty great chef if I do say so myself!"

 _And I'm sure it has nothing to do with how the only grocer you could reasonably reach in a day's time overcharged you for everything_ except _cup ramen. Any kind of flavored rice must've been a treat to you._ Kakashi gives a noncommittal hum, stirring the pan of rice. Not for the first time, he wishes that he'd come out of ANBU sooner. Even if he couldn't directly interact with Naruto as he should have been able to due to the Sandaime's directive, he would've at least kept a better eye on some of the bolder citizens of Konoha for him.

Naruto shouldn't have been alone, need for secrecy be damned. Sensei's attitude when he dropped Naruto off early this morning has only cemented that in his mind— Sensei had picked Naruto right up and swung him around and laughed, promising ramen and another chapter of The Tale of the Utterly Gutsy Shinobi upon his return, and Kakashi's seen a lot of emotions from Naruto over the years but there had been a joy in his student's eyes that was entirely new. _Authentic,_ even though Naruto's probably the most genuine person he knows.

"Hey, hey," Naruto speaks up, drawing Kakashi out of his thoughts. "What do you plan to do about all… this?"

He waves vaguely, but Kakashi knows what he means. With another short hum as he turns and transfers the pan off the heat, he considers. "What do you plan to do?"

He can practically see Naruto straighten at the "teacher voice"- Kakashi likes to bring it out every now and again, just to keep the kids on their toes. The shuffling sounds like Naruto's sitting up, at least. "Y'know, there were no return parameters on that seal," Naruto says. "It'll take me years to get to that level again, even though I've got it all in my head. My body isn't used to it. So I've decided that I'm gonna make the most of this. It looks like things are pretty different here, but what about out there? The other jinchuuriki, what's it like for them? What about Gaara? Maybe I can't help them all now, but knowing what I do, I can help them in other ways. Didja know there's an old pen pal system at the post office? I can get in contact with Gaara that way. I can try and save him."

Just like that, Kakashi is reminded why he was going to make this boy Hokage despite his… eccentricities. Plates successfully loaded with fried rice, he takes one in each hand and smiles at Naruto with open pride. He hands a plate to Naruto and sits across from him. "You've grown."

Naruto's face turns a light shade of pink. He takes a big bite of rice, chews, and swallows. "It's not something you can really stop, y'know. But what about you?"

"Well, I've got a few friends I could check up on, I suppose."

 **viii.**

Some day, somehow, someone is going to account for this. There will be a reckoning.

"Sasuke?"

"…Hi, Mother," Sasuke says feebly as he stands in the doorway. His spine is ramrod straight; he refuses to let on that he is still desperate to look through every nook and cranny in the house in order to re-establish where he is, that the walls and floors are bright without the grime he had once let collect for a week before realizing how displeased she would've been—

She pushes a bag into his hand and smooths her hand over his hair in order to bump her forehead against his with the lightest of touches. "Don't get distracted on the way to the park, Sasuke."

"I… I won't, Mother." The words tumble out of his mouth, halting, uncontrolled. Sasuke would probably care about it more if he weren't so busy staring at her, drinking in the sight of her face and the private smile in her eyes.

"Aa? But you were about to walk out the door without your shoes," Mikoto teases lightly, holding up a pair of sandals that seem impossibly small. "It's not like a son of mine to forget where we keep our shoes, now is it?"

Sasuke blinks, and the world snaps back into focus. "Mom," he whines, forcing faded memories up and into the light of day. Mikoto laughs and hands the sandals to him. With fumbling hands he finds the straps and pulls them on. He hasn't worn these in ten years—

—but he hasn't even been alive for ten years, here.

"Have fun with your friends, alright?"

 _Friends?_

Ah, right. Them. Suddenly he has purpose. "I will, Mother!" he calls, hurrying out the door, hardly even seeing the startled faces of his relatives (living relatives) as he sprints through the Uchiha district. He narrowly dodges one of his cousins and turns a corner in one smooth motion. He nears the gate…

…and runs right into Itachi. "Hello, Sasuke," his brother says mildly, catching him by his upper arms. "I'm sorry for making you wait. Come, let us go."

Sasuke tries not to hyperventilate. Since Itachi only looks at him for a moment and puts him down without comment, he decides that he's okay for the moment. "I wanna go to the park," he says between huffs of air, deciding not to mention the whole meeting with friends thing. "We're going to the park, right?"

"Yes… but you must learn patience, Sasuke." Itachi is smiling, which is as close to a laugh as he's ever going to get. A torrent of emotion rages inside Sasuke at the sight of it.

Something in his heart sings. _You're alive_ and _I'm sorry, brother_ and _Itachi, Itachi, Itachi_ all flit through his mind at top speed. They walk side by side in silence. Sasuke chances a look and is struck by his brother's high, refined profile, the small upturn of his lips. "Itachi?"

"Yes?"

"I'm… I…"

Itachi glances at him, wordless concern in his gaze. "What's wrong, Sasuke?"

 _I'm glad you're alive,_ Sasuke thinks.

"Congratulations on making genin," he says.

Itachi reaches out and pokes him in the forehead. Sasuke squawks. Itachi lets out a little laugh, pauses as he regards his brother, and smiles again. "Thank you."

They're silent for some time.

"I will be going on my first mission this evening," Itachi says, watching him carefully.

 _Huh._

"Already?" Sasuke asks in surprise, stopping to stare at him. Itachi gently herds him over to the side of the road. A passing old lady nods approvingly, and Sasuke is suddenly and sharply reminded of how much the elderly had always loved Itachi and his painstakingly polite manners.

"Yes. I will be gone for some time, too—my sensei estimates at least a month. I wished to tell you myself. Be good, Sasuke," Itachi says, putting his hands on Sasuke's shoulders. "Do your best in the Academy. I'll train with you when I return."

 _What?_ Sasuke starts in badly-hidden surprise. _What changed?_ "You will?"

"I will," Itachi promises, quite seriously, staring Sasuke right in the eyes.

When Itachi talks like that, he means it. Sasuke blinks, a little too dumbfounded to be happy. "O-Okay," he says, shifting under Itachi's loose grip. "It's a promise. So… you have to come back safe."

Itachi smiles, lets him go, and starts walking again. Sasuke hurries to catch up, mind spinning.

 _He didn't have time to "train" with me in my childhood because he was already in ANBU at this point. If he's only a genin now, at some point Mother put her foot down and demanded that her son not be forced into advancement at the cost of knowing his batch of shinobi,_ he reasons, thoughts fluttering back to the journal he had uncovered among his mother's belongings after the war. _And Mother could have only done that if she had a greater force backing her than Father's personal wishes… so what happened? What's the difference in this world?_

"Oi, Itachi-kun!" a loud, boisterous voice hollers, and Sasuke looks up to see a red-headed woman with a wriggling Naruto being carried like a stack of lumber speeding towards them. She pulls up a foot away from Sasuke and Itachi. "Change of plans, kiddo. Meet at the gates in thirty minutes."

"Understood, Kushina-sensei," Itachi says, completely unaffected by the bizarre sight in front of him.

"Mom, let me go!" Naruto howls, and Kushina smirks before dropping him unceremoniously on the ground. "Hey!"

"Be good, Naruto," Kushina says, but the effect is ruined by the evil grin on her face. "Tell your dad that I restocked the fridge and that he's not allowed to use the veggies to experiment with space-time fuuinjutsu. Especially if he's going to try and use Kakashi's eggplant supply again—do you know how much of a hissy fit Kakashi threw the last time? Seriously. Remind me to teach you how to cook when I get back."

 _Ah. That's the difference,_ Sasuke realizes, staring thoughtfully in Kushina's general direction. _Naruto's parents are alive. His father was the Fourth Hokage. The political situation here must be very different under the surface._

"But your cooking is the best!" Naruto protests with a goofy grin, shimmying to Sasuke's side and ignoring the suspicious glare being aimed at him by Sasuke.

"You're getting good at flattery!" Kushina says approvingly, messing his hair up with her knuckles.

"Kushina-sensei, may I suggest that Naruto-kun and Sasuke make their way to the park together?" Itachi cuts in smoothly.

"Oh, great idea. Sound good, Naruto, Sasuke-kun?"

Sasuke and Naruto exchange a quick glance. "Alright," Sasuke says reluctantly, while Naruto grins and nods.

"Sounds good!"

"Can I trust you to _not_ get into trouble along the way?" Kushina asks with a raised eyebrow and a pointed look in Naruto's direction.

"That was one time, Mom," he whines, just for the sake of it.

Kushina laughs at him. "Yeah, just like _somehow_ ending up at Ichiraku's while out on a walk with Dad was an accident."

"Don't you have a mission?"

She blinks. "Oooh. I'd better get to that! Love you, honey. Don't blow your eyebrows off with that fuuinjutsu practice! Bye!"

With that she shunshins away, leaving Itachi with the boys. He looks down at them.

"I will need to retrieve my things. Be good, Sasuke," he says finally, hopping onto a nearby roof.

"I will," Sasuke lies, and he and Naruto watch as Itachi speeds back in the direction of the Uchiha compound.

"…So, how's being a bastard going?" Naruto asks.

Sasuke's eye twitches. "It can't be any worse than you. What's it like being a total moron?"

"I'll have you know that I'm a very intelligent boy."

"If you get that tested against a pile of rocks, maybe."

"Did you just admit that I'm smarter than a pile of rocks?" Naruto demands, walking backwards in order to face Sasuke. "Keep going at this rate and you might—is that Sakura?"

Sasuke glances backwards. On a distant roof, a shinobi is talking to what appears to be a head of pink hair on his back. He laughs, claps his hands together, and just before he disappears in a blur Sasuke recognizes him. "That's Shisui."

"That was definitely Sakura," Naruto argues. "How many other people in Konoha have hair that specific shade of pink?"

"No, moron, the guy with her was my cousin Shisui."

 _I didn't even know that Shisui was alive here,_ he thinks with the slightest of frowns.

Naruto looks at him. "…Hey, was he…"

"Yes," Sasuke confirms shortly. "He was."

"Should we—?" Naruto starts.

"Yes, we should investigate. Park first, she's supposed to meet us there."

Naruto scowls. "Oi, let me finish my sentences!"

"Only when you have something intelligent to say," Sasuke counters, and sets off in the direction of the park.

 **ix.**

It's a sunny Saturday in the civilian district. The birds are chirping, the path is dusty, and Sakura is halfway to the park before the slow cold creeping up her spine tells her that _something is wrong._

 _You know what this feels like?_ Sakura asks Inner rhetorically. _It feels like Sai is trying to get the drop on me._

 _Uh, that's the hopeless guy, right?_

Sakura rather thinks that all of the men in her life are hopeless, but nods anyways, swinging her bag back and forth. She hums to herself, casually taking in the world around her. Houses sit in neat lines on either side of the unpaved path, and the only other person ahead of her is a young woman with cloth grocery bags in her hands. Sakura rounds the corner that leads to the market and catches a flash of dark standard-issue gear and a man's frame out of the corner of her eye, which does nothing to improve her mood.

 _Well, then. I'm being followed. And if it feels like Sai…_

 _Holy shit,_ Inner whispers, a definite quaver in her voice.

 _You know it doesn't sound right when you do that?_ Sakura tosses back, scanning the street she's on casually. It's much more crowded the farther down it she goes. Up high are ninja passing by—she could probably make it up there, but the man behind her is too quiet to be anything but a ninja and that would surely put him on guard. _Can I out-speed him at this age?_ she asks herself, and her lips turn down. _No. Think, Sakura, think. What are my other options?_

Further ahead are open-fronted stores frequented by civilian passerby and children laughing as they chase each other through the wide streets. To the sides are quiet alleys she recalls from the haziest of her genin days, alleys that were fit for demon cats, but not very well suited for pink-haired girls.

She doesn't have a lot of options. She glances up again. _I remember that there used to be a sign that civilian children could use to rightfully hail a ninja down… Was it a history book that I read that in? Of all the times to forget useless bits of trivia!_

 _But maybe it'll work,_ Inner suggests, rather optimistically. _Anything is better than this. Anything._

One of Sakura's more brutal memories, a briefing on a series of scarily similar stalking incidents that led to an assassination mission, floats to the forefront. _Told you not to go through those._

Inner does not reply, but Sakura supposes the guilt welling up in the pit of her stomach is answer enough.

 _Alright. Okay. I have to try_.

"Hey, ninja-san!" Sakura shouts at the young, kind—looking ninja who's crouching on the roof of the home gardening store right next to her. He rises and turns to her with a raised eyebrow, pointing to himself in silent question. _Huh,_ she thinks, twisting her fingers together. _That looks familiar… but I know I don't know him._ "Yeah, ninja-san, I need help! Can you help me?"

"Depends," the man says with a smile, flipping down to stand in front of her. His eyes dart down to her fingers and up again so quickly that she'd never have known if she hadn't been watching for it. "What's a kid like you need?"

She rocks back and forth as cutely as she can. "Can you give me directions to the Academy? My friend made me promise to meet him there, but he didn't tell me how to get there. Now I'm lost."

"How about I do you one better, kiddo? I'll take you there, since I'm headed to the Tower. Sound good?"

"Yes, thank you. Please take care of me," Sakura says with a bow.

The man laughs and crouches again, pointing a thumb at his back. "Here, get on. And don't be so formal! Kids should cut loose every once in a while."

Sakura gets on and braces herself for a lot of unpleasant impacts. Instead, what she gets is the man grinning.

"Hey, kid. You ever heard of the Shunshin?"

"No," Sakura lies.

"It's really cool. It makes you go fast—like, _vwoosh_ fast. Here, why don't I show you?" He glances back at her skeptical look and gives her a thumbs up. "I'm famed for my Shunshin skills, you know. They call me Shunshin no Shisui!"

"Really?" she asks, eyes wide, and at his nod something clicks. _That's it, no wonder that pose looked familiar—this is one of Sasuke's cousins!_

"Yep. You're in good hands with me. So let's go!"

"Alright!" Sakura clings to his back and gives a gleeful little shout when he takes off. Shisui makes several tiny stops along the way, probably for her benefit, but soon enough they've covered an incredible amount of distance in a short amount of time. She claps (away from his ears) and puts her hands on his shoulders. "Again, again!"

Shisui laughs. "I told you! It's cool, isn't it?"

"It's amazing," she says, only playing the enthusiasm up a little bit. Shunshin is _really fun._

"Well, we don't have too much farther to go. I bet you got turned around at Maple Corner, right?"

Sakura blinks. "Yeah, I think so. How'd you know?"

"Ah, well… most kids usually use the main roads to get to the Academy, you know? All those little housing streets at Maple Corner get confusing pretty easily."

"Yeah…" Sakura heaves a big sigh. "It looked like that road would lead to the big one, but it didn't."

Her matter-of-fact tone makes Shisui snort and shift into a ready stance. "Well, let's get you to the Tower. I'd like to hear more about how you got there."

"Okay. Thank you… Shisui-san?"

"Ahuh. And what should I call you? It can't be Sakura…"

The sigh is real this time. _Mom and Dad probably felt like they had no choice._ "…It's Sakura."

"…Oh."

"Please take me to the Tower, Shisui-san."

"R-Right. Sakura-chan! That sounds good. Let's go."

 **x.**

"So, someone hostile was following you, Sakura-chan? I haven't seen kids use those signals in a long time. And you did it discreetly, too. That's good." Shisui smiles at her as they sit in the tea shop across from the Hokage Tower.

"Yes," Sakura confirms, pushing aside the urge to take Inner's anxiety out on something. "I… I didn't get a good look at him, so I can't tell for sure… but he was quiet like a ninja, and he had this, um, I guess you'd call it a… _feeling_ … to him." She scrunches up her face, a portrait of confusion. "It wasn't like the feeling you have—you're warm and you feel like the trees. It was… cold, I think? And it felt like metal, not wood. It was really scary."

Shisui nods, face set in a neutral mask, but she can see the surprise in his eyes.

She knows, of course, that she's describing chakra. She also knows that it's quite unusual for children to be able to sense chakra with as much detail as she's telling him. "And… when it didn't go away after I crossed two streets, I knew something was wrong. So I called you, like my books said to."

"Hmm. You did the right thing, Sakura-chan, and I'll make sure that it doesn't happen again. Tell me, are either of your parents ninja?"

"Um, well…" Sakura frowns, looking down. "My parents are, uh, gone. It happened when I was little. But they were ninja before they died," she hastens to say at Shisui's self-aggrandizing wince.

"Man, I'm sorry, Sakura-chan. I didn't mean to pry, but what you just told me made me curious. Did you know that most kids can't sense 'feelings' with that level of detail?"

"Really? I thought everyone could sense that…"

"No, not at all. In fact, it's pretty amazing that you can do that. It takes most adults a lot of practice to develop that level of sensitivity to those 'feelings'… most people aren't that good at chakra control, you see."

"Chakra… control?"

Shisui hums in the affirmative. "Chakra control. It's how well you can use the energy in your body, basically. If you can sense other people that naturally, you must be really good at using your chakra—even unconsciously! In fact… hmm, you mentioned that a friend of yours wanted to meet you at the Academy. Is he attending classes there?"

"Yes, actually," Sakura says, eyes wide.

"Would you like to join him in the Academy? I know it can be tough to navigate your way through the paperwork as an orphan, but your chakra control is good enough that it might catch the attention of someone who can help you all through it… like, say, the Uchiha clan."

 _Am I being offered the patronage of the Uchiha clan?_

Sakura looks at Shisui, who raises an eyebrow at her.

 _I'm being offered the patronage of the Uchiha clan._

"What would that entail?" she asks cautiously, and when Shisui's eyes gleam with approval, she knows that this is going to be a _very_ interesting experience.


End file.
